More than a third of the nation's 100 large cities have failed to establish overall community-wide climate goals, and just 19 of the 38 that have data available on their efforts to date were on track to meet their goals, according to the 2021 City Clean Energy Scorecard released Dec. 15 by the American Council for an Energy-Efficient Economy (ACEEE).

San Francisco ranked first overall, with Seattle and Washington, D.C., next. Madison, Wisconsin; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Honolulu were the year’s most-improved cities, but many municipalities saw their progress stifled by the pandemic due to budget cutbacks and worker furloughs.

Although transportation contributes the largest share of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions in the United States, just a quarter of these 100 cities have set goals to reduce either vehicle miles traveled or GHG emissions from the sector, the report stated.

Amid sea-level rise along much of the U.S. coastline and a 12% increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide since 2000, cities have made "limited progress" toward their greenhouse gas emissions goals, according to the latest ACEEE scorecard. And many lack the data to know how well they are progressing toward achieving their targets.

"Unfortunately, the reality is that a portion of those cities do not have data tracking, or they don't have multiple years of emissions data, to track whether they're on track to meet those goals," said lead report author Stefen Samarripas, who serves as local policy manager at ACEEE.

The 2021 scorecard was the sixth the nonprofit research organization has issued since 2013. Cities are scored in five policy areas: communitywide initiatives, buildings policies, transportation policies, energy and water utilities, and local government operations. Transportation and buildings can score up to 30 points each, out of a possible total of 100.

San Francisco received top scores for its transportation policies and local government operations. The report hailed the city for mandating electric vehicle charging infrastructure in new commercial, residential and municipal buildings as well as requiring EV chargers in parking lots and garages with more than 100 spaces. San Francisco also eliminated minimum parking space requirements citywide to encourage more walking, biking and transit use.

Read the full article about city climate goals by Dan Zukowski at Smart Cities Dive.